


The Veterans Dinner

by Remki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-19
Updated: 2011-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Remki/pseuds/Remki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Done for a fill over at sherlockbbc_fic@LJ about Watson in military uniform. John gets invited to a Veterans appreciation dinner, and oddly enough Sherlock has to talk him into it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Veterans Dinner

There were days when, though he tried his best to remember what the upsides to Sherlock’s ever-present deduction skills were, that John simply wished that Sherlock would leave things _be_ now and then. But the man could never resist a mystery -no matter how small- and it seemed that in the case of John Watson, Sherlock Holmes had found an ongoing investigation to fill up the incessantly boring existence between his Work.

“So you’re definitely not going then?” Sherlock asked without turning around from his seat in front of the computer screen. The blue glow of the LED screen lit his curls in a strange halo that caught Johns’ eye for a moment, before he realized what Sherlock was asking him.

“Going to what?” he asked, feigning ignorance. It irritated him that no matter how much he tried, Sherlock always seemed to out his secrets, even when he tried very hard to keep them to himself.

“The Veterans’ Dinner,” Sherlock replied flatly.

“And just how did you know about that?” John asked. “I’ve only just come in with the mail, you couldn’t have seen the invitation yet.”

“You’ve received three such invitations in the past two months, all of which you have promptly dumped in the bin after opening. You’ve also received two emails from your former superior officers urging you to join them at their tables, a letter from one of the men whom you had saved on the battlefield asking if you’d be there so that he could introduce you to his wife, and a phone call from your sister asking if she could join as your plus one and ‘would there be free drinks’.”

“How could you possibly- wait, you read my emails?” he asked, his voice rising in indignation. “AND my mail? Sherlock, you do know that that’s _illegal_ , don’t you? Not to mention rude. Plus, I change my password every week now, how are you even getting in?”

“Who said anything about passwords? It’s not that difficult to see over your shoulder, John. I’d advise you to buy a privacy screen if you’re really that worried about it.”

“And my mail?”

“It was in the bin.”

“That doesn’t make it fair game, Sherlock!” John felt his fists clenching, the daily mail scrunching in his hands as he stood in the doorway staring at the back of Sherlock’s head in frustration. “The fact still stands that that was MY mail, and you had no right to go shifting through it to satisfy your own curiosity!”

“So you’re not going then?” Sherlock repeated his previous question, ignoring John’s outburst.

“No, I’m not!” John threw the mail down on the little table next to his chair before landing in the seat with a huff. He refused to look at Sherlock then, even though the other man had his back turned. Even when he couldn’t see him, John felt like Sherlock could still read his face like an open book. It had made for more than one awkward situation for the good doctor.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why aren’t you going to the moon? What do you think _why_ , John?” At this, Sherlock had turned around, his chair spinning smoothly in place to position the tall man fully in front of the doctor. It was the first sign of a growing irritation and an aroused curiosity at Johns’ unwillingness to play along and just answer his question.

“I just don’t want to, that’s all,” the doctor answered back, and added in a quiet voice “It doesn’t interest me.”

“Not surprising,” Sherlock noted flatly. “Still, I would expect a sense of duty to over-ride your typical hermitic tendencies, John.”

“Oh, and look who’s talking. Pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”

“I frequently leave the flat, John.”

“For cases, Sherlock, or experiments. Never just to take a walk, or see people, or go to the library, or- or anything normal like that. At least I do the shopping.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes in that manner of his that said he couldn’t be bothered with anything as trivial as walks or shopping, and that it was pointless for John to even bring those up as counter-arguments. He stared at the doctor with a hard gaze, watching and waiting for a _real_ answer. John sucked in air through his teeth as he felt a wave of anger, and to his confusion, embarrassment overtake him under his friends intense gaze. He felt as if the other man had turned Johns’ mind out like a box, picking through all the little things inside for inspection and analysis, disregarding Johns protestations of privacy and concern. And there were some things that, for better or worse, the doctor did not under any circumstances want Sherlock to discover, and the longer he looked, the more sure John felt that eventually he would see it all there as plain as a page in a book. He looked away.

“I can’t go. I just simply can’t,” he ground out through clenched teeth. A pain in his leg throbbed suddenly upward, the first of such he had felt in the months since he had come to live on Baker Street. He reached down instinctively to rub it, but caught himself halfway and forced his hand back up to sit clenched fisted on his knee. He knew undoubtedly that Sherlock had seen, and would know exactly what it meant. When the consulting detective started to open his mouth to speak, John pre-empted him by standing up and stalking out of the room and into the kitchen. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to think about it. But behind him he heard the sounds of the great detective standing up from his chair and following him through to the kitchen. He heard him lean nonchalantly against the door frame, could picture in his mind exactly how Sherlock would be standing; one leg curled lazily behind the one supporting his weight, his hands in his pockets, that _look_ , that infuriatingly amused and curious yet blank look across his face as he watched John stalk around the kitchen in silence making tea. The doctor tilted his head slightly and looked quickly out of the corner of his eyes. Yes, there he was, exactly as he had thought. Sherlock didn’t say anything as he watched his flatmate bustle around in angry, flustered silence. He didn’t even comment when John, distracted by his own thoughts and the annoying presence at his back, forgot the kitchen towel and reached for the teapot with a bare hand, scalding it on the hot handle with a loud curse.

He thrust his burning hand under a stream of cold water in the sink and watched as the flesh turned a gaudy red and blanched white. Images and noises, things he had so far kept repressed during the daylight, seemed to well up from the black of the sink hole and reach out for him, trying to fill his mind with memories and nightmares. John swallowed hard, and forced them down his throat until his mind was quiet once more, and his hand had turned numb under the water. He turned the faucet off, but still found that he couldn’t look at Sherlock.

“Whatever you or your brother might think,” he said very quietly, his back turned on his friend, “I don’t miss the war. Not…completely. Not some things.”

Sherlock didn’t answer. Somehow, the silence made it easier for John to go on. Things he had never said, not even to his therapist –when he had still gone to see her-, things he had never dreamed he could ever tell Sherlock for fear of somehow loosing status in the great mans eyes, suddenly poured from him as he stood over the sink, staring at it’s cracked white enamel with a hard gaze.

“People died there, Sherlock. Good people. People better than me. People that I knew. I saw them go, sometimes so quickly that it’s become nothing but a haze of smoke, dirt and blood in my head. Some went more slowly, dying like injured dogs on the side of a dirt road, or in the back of ambulance vans, or at the hospitals.”

He stopped for a minute, struggling to find the right words. He stared down at his hands, noting without thinking the water blisters that had formed on his right palm. He didn’t care.

“…I tried to save them. If I could, I tried. I did everything possible. But you can’t save everyone in a war, Sherlock. It can’t be done. And I can’t not think about the ones who didn’t come back, when I’m surrounded by the ones that did.”

His voice faded from the kitchen, and a deafening silence surrounded him, only broken by the low whirr of the refrigerator and the strange electrical hum of the florescent lights overhead. There was no movement, no sound of shifting or breathing, and for a second John thought that Sherlock had left him to talk alone at the wall. He turned around then, and couldn’t suppress a breath of surprise as he came face to face with his flatmate almost immediately in front of him. The detective could move like a cat if he wanted to.

“Sherlock, what-” the doctor began to ask, when his friend had suddenly grabbed his injured hand. From somewhere –John could only guess where, since he seemed to conjure it from thin air- Sherlock produced some kind of burn balm and a cotton wrap bandage, which he spread over the doctor’s burn with quick efficiency and wrapped it, tucking in the ends so that it formed a nice dressing over the blisters without impairing his hand motion. He held on to the hand after he had finished, looking at it with his keen eyes like a specimen for examination, turning it over and peering at the knuckles and small hairs inquisitively. John felt his face flush with embarrassment under the scrutiny, and something else too. He swallowed that part down, like he had swallowed the images and noises. Sherlock spoke without looking up from his examination of the doctor’s hand.

“You should go, John. I think you’d find it a good experience.”

“Will you come with me?” The question came out without the thought ever having consciously crossed John’s mind.

Sherlock gave him one of his small, restrained smiles, and let go of Johns hand to turn away, back to the living room.

“Of course.”

\-------

“I really can’t do this, Sherlock. I feel ridiculous.”

John stood in the doorway. Outside, the setting sun had turned the light honey-gold, and in the beams that shone through the dirty window and dust-filled air, John stood in full ceremonial uniform, medals glinting and fabric shining. He had kept the uniform clean and well ironed, hanging neatly in his closet since he had moved in at Baker Street. Now, standing in it under the inscrutable gaze of Sherlock Holmes, what had always felt like a grand and ceremonious outfit felt like a cheap, gaudy and pompous costume. He shifted on his feet, wishing he could shove his hands in his pockets to keep them from feeling dull and useless against his sides, but restrained the urge. With his back to the light, it was impossible to know what Sherlock was thinking as he surveyed his friend, his face a mere silhouette of dark curls and the occasional flash of eyes when they moved up and down John’s form.

“You’ll be fine, John,” the man said at last, and moved suddenly from seated to standing and striding across the room. He had dressed up for the occasion, but since his normal daily couture consisted of well groomed suits and impeccable hygiene, only a keen and familiar eye would notice the upgrade much. He had put on a tie, though the occasional wandering hand to his neck told John that, like most other restraints, Sherlock was not very comfortable with this one. His suit was somewhat more tailored than the others, and a muted gray waistcoat had been located and adorned in what John thought was a rather stylish manner. He watched as Sherlock pulled his jacket on over the waistcoat and then donned his usual greatcoat and scarf. John realized at that moment that he wasn’t quite certain that he had anything to go over his uniform. He had been so busy worrying about going in the first place, it hadn’t occurred to him that his typical coats simply wouldn’t do. But there was nothing he could do about it by then. With an inward shrug, he pulled on what he thought was his best coat of the lot, refusing to look at himself one more time in the hall mirror.

“All ready?” he asked. The detective nodded silently. It was unnerving for John, the way that Sherlock had seemed to clam up that evening. Ever since John had put on his uniform, Sherlock had been reticent in his speech, and though he kept staring at John, he never seemed to have anything to say. The doctor thought that maybe it had something to do with Sherlock’s dislike of war –a sentiment he had heard Sherlock reference more than once during his brother Mycroft’s visits- but somewhere at the back of his mind, the keen gaze of his friend had stirred feelings that John refused to let surface.

Outside, they hailed a cab. London was bustling that evening, cabs and cars and pedestrians whizzing by in blurry reflections of light and laughter past the taxi windows. Sherlock seemed absorbed in his own thoughts, his keen eyes lazily gazing out the window. No doubt taking in, analyzing, and understanding everything they saw within seconds, John thought. He turned his own attention back to the paper in his hand. They had sent him instructions on parking, seating, the meal, the venue- everything he would need to know about the dinner- after he had RSVP’d, and it wasn’t until they were in the cab that John had thought to give it more than a passing look.

“They’ve seated you next to that young man, I see,” Sherlock said in a low voice. John looked up at him, but the detective wasn’t looking back. “The one you saved, who sent you the letter.”

“Yes,” John replied, “I think he asked them specifically, though I couldn’t be sure.”

“Hm,” Sherlock grunted in reply. It was the last thing he said for the rest of the half hour journey. John was relieved when the cab finally pulled up to the steps of the hotel where the dinner would be held, glad to be out of the strange, oppressive atmosphere of his friend’s silence. Together, they walked up the large marble staircase towards the lobby doors, where golden light spilled out across the darkness in inviting warmth. Other veterans in uniform were arriving, and John greeted them with respectful nods as the ascended the stair. Sherlock trailed behind, taking the steps more slowly than his friend, watching everybody as they passed. John waited for him at the top of the stairs before entering into the lobby and heading for the reception desk. The woman at the desk took a quick look at their invitations, marked his name on some list, and directed the pair of them down a lush hall, towards wooden double doors where another attendant also looked at their invitations and directed them to their seats. It was a large, round table, lightly decorated and beautifully set. A couple was already seated at the table, and when John approached the man turned around and, with a huge smile, stood up and saluted.

“Doctor Watson!” the man exclaimed, “I’m so very glad you could come! This is my wife, Helen. Helen, this is the man who saved my life, Doctor John Watson.”

The woman who had been seated beside her husband stood and smiled at John. He tried to smile back, but somewhere between his mind and his mouth it got stuck in a sort of half smile. Images of her husband bleeding out over the hot dirt road had suddenly met him when he reached out to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m so pleased to meet you, Doctor Watson. My husband is always going on about you,” she stuck out a delicate hand, and John took it gently. She had a stronger grip than he expected, and she clasped his hand warmly between her own in a display of sincere gratitude. “Thank you so much,” she said with feeling. John nodded, a little embarrassed. Then she turned her dark eyes on Sherlock, seemingly equally as happy to meet a friend of the good doctors as the doctor himself. “And you are?”

“This is my— friend, Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock, this is Douglas Richardson, and his wife, Helen.”

Sherlock gave them one of his courteous smiles. “Hello,” he said. He ignored their outstretched hands in favor of removing his jacket and placing it on the back of the chair seated in front of a little paper placard with his name printed on it. John gave the couple an apologetic smile, and then did the same before seating himself in front of his own paper placard. Douglas and Helen sat down across from them at their own seats, and in a few minutes John and the other two had started up a friendly chat while they waited for the other guests to arrive and the ceremonies and dinner to start. A small part of Johns mind, however, was turned on Sherlock, watching as the tall man sat in silence. It wasn’t quite the same as the bored and irritated silence that John knew so well, though Sherlock was obviously bored with the company and conversation. But something was on the man’s mind, and it seemed to be distracting him, making him slightly edgy and strained, so slightly that only someone who knew Sherlock as John knew him would notice it. To everyone else he would appear quiet, composed and respectful. But John could sense the silence between them like an energy. Finally, when he found that he had to either move or say something, he excused himself from the table quietly. He had intended just to go to the restroom, but somehow he found himself down a small corridor off the side of the main hall that led to a dead end and an exit door. John found that he desperately needed air, and –very thankful that the door wasn’t alarmed- he went outside into the cold night.

The door led out into a small back lot, no doubt used by staff and caterers, though it seemed to be a periphery lot and not much used at that moment. It was walled off by a big brick wall that prevented people from climbing in and sneaking into the hotel, and only a few cars littered the parking lot, lit by dim yellow lights. The rest lay in what passed for darkness in London, that orange-gold glow and purple shadow mixture that was never truly completely dark. John found a brick to prop open the door, probably placed there by employees for use on smoke breaks, and then retreated into a darkened alcove in the building wall, where a concrete bench and concrete ashtray had been placed. It was dirty and reeked of tobacco, but the coldness of the night air and concrete under his bared fingers seemed to take some of the pressure off his mind, and he took a deep breath, realizing for the first time since he had arrived just how wound up he had become over the course of the evening. Was it seeing all these uniforms again, all those faces? Or was it Sherlock and his eerie, prickling silence? A combination of the two, probably, John thought. John wondered again at his companions’ strange turn in behavior that day. Though the doctor had grown used to the detective’s sudden mood changes, Sherlock had started off the day on a relatively good note, talkative and excited about his latest experiments. But ever since John had put on that uniform, Sherlock had been—

What? What had he been? The memory of the detective’s silhouetted gaze in the setting sun brought up strange, fluttering feelings in the doctor’s stomach. He tried to knock them back down, to make them disappear, but out in the cold and the dark, it was harder to hide from himself than it was in the disguise of blinding daylight. No one could see his face redden all the way to the tips of his ears, or the way his hands clenched at his side as if they needed something to hold on to. With a sigh, John buried his head in his hands to give them something to do, and to block out the images that came swimming up, unbidden, to his mind. Of keen eyes and dark, curling hair ringed in the gold light of the setting sun, of the way they had stayed on him, slowly taking in everything as he stood for inspection -for approval- and waited for some kind of sign that— that—.

John didn’t know what he was waiting for. What he had been waiting for.

Absorbed in his own thoughts, he hadn’t noticed the small squeak of metal hinges as the door to the lot opened, or the sound of someone crossing the pavement towards the bench. He did notice when someone sat next to him, though, and he lifted his head from his hands with a start, only to see the dark form of Sherlock beside him. His eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness that he could see his friend clearly, while it was obvious that Sherlock hadn’t yet adjusted fully. His light eyes were unfocused, staring at the outline of John in the dark, a hand reached halfway between them, frozen and unsure about its destination. After a momentary pause, it dropped to settle on the bench between them.

“You know that I’m no good at ‘chatting’, John.”

“I only meant to be a few minutes, Sherlock,” the doctor answered wearily. Sherlock glanced at his watch, it’s numbers illuminated by their own small light.

“It’s been _fifteen_ minutes. Or nearly, anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” John said, exasperated. “I’ll come back in now.”

He moved to stand, but Sherlock’s sudden and unexpected hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“Don’t bother. They’ve started some speech about heroics and bravery, anyway. No doubt you’d rather wait until it’s finished before making your re-entrance.”

John wavered for a moment, uncertain. But the thought of walking in to a full room in the middle of some solemn speech on duty and honor was too much, and he sat back down decisively.

“Fine, we’ll wait.”

John had hoped that Sherlock had followed him out there to talk, but when it became obvious that the man wasn’t going to say anything further, John’s irritation got the best of him.

“Look, if you want to leave, than just go.”

“What?” Sherlock, beside him, raised an eyebrow in question. He seemed genuinely surprised.

“You’ve been silent all evening. I know that normal interactions and things like Veterans’ Dinners’ are all boring and mundane to you, but when you agreed to come I thought you’d at least make an effort. But if you’re not even going to try and speak to anyone all night, then you should just go home and save me the trouble.”

Sherlock didn’t answer him, but the sudden look that crossed the man’s face was enough to take all the wind from Johns sails. The detective didn’t look bored, or haughty, or anything that John had been expecting in response. Instead, Sherlock had frowned, and stared hard at John, a strange look in his eyes. The doctor repressed the urge to shift uncomfortably on his seat, and stared straight back.

“What, Sherlock? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Is that what you think, then? That I didn’t want to be here?”

“Well…yes.”

Sherlock looked away, his eyes taking in the parking lot and the high brick wall before he answered.

“…You’re right. I don’t want to be here. In another situation, I wouldn’t have come at all. There would be no reason, and no benefit for me.”

“Then why—”

“Because you’re here, John,” Sherlock had turned his gaze back on John, and something had changed about it. It seemed sharper and decisive somehow. “I came because you asked me to.”

“Oh,” was all that John could find to say. “Oh. Well, um. Thank you.” He paused for a moment, and then asked, “Then why have you been so quiet all evening?”

“Aren’t I usually?” Sherlock asked blandly.

“Not like this, Sherlock,” John answered seriously. Sherlock stared down at him, his blue eyes eerily light in the dim glow of the parking lot lights. The hand that hand come to rest between them on the bench suddenly rose up and reached forward. John saw it, and watched it as it came up and then hesitated near the collar of his uniform, before it lightly touched the fabric. The doctor felt his heart start to thud loudly in his chest, as hard and as fast as if he had just been running. He took a deep breath, willing it to slow as the detective’s hand slowly traced down the lapel, towards the doctors chest, and then back up and behind his neck, flattening out the collar, which had come up when John had had his head down earlier. There the hand rested, the fingers lightly brushing the exposed skin between Johns hair and the stiff collar fabric at the base of his neck. It was just the lightest touch, nothing at all like some of the more familiar, friendly ones that had passed between them during the rush of a case, but it had made every hair on John’s entire body stand, and that sickening, fluttering, beautiful feeling in his gut returned. Sherlock’s eyes hadn’t left Johns face the entire time and John found that he couldn’t bring himself to look away. There was hesitancy there, in the man’s eyes, despite their typical sharpness. Whatever had pushed him to move before had left him, and he seemed suddenly frozen, neither willing to drop his hand, nor able to go any further.

John was never sure later what exactly happened right then. Like so many moments before it, John had acted without conscious decision. One moment Sherlock was staring at him with those intense, uncertain eyes, and the next John had reached up and closed the gap between them, lips meeting in a soft, questioning kiss. It hadn’t been like other times, with other men and women. John was usually so confident, but something in Sherlock’s tentative touch had made him gentle in a way that only tenderness can make you. He knew, in that moment, that Sherlock had been afraid of what John would do when he touched him. It was almost funny, how someone so fearless and intelligent as Sherlock could be so timid in the face of rejection. When their lips touched again, John felt the hand on the back of his neck suddenly grow heavier, and its partner moved to find John’s in the space between their bodies as the kiss grew bolder, more confident. Sherlock, for all his other adventures in life, was not the most experienced kisser that John had ever met, but the warmth and need that suddenly spilled from the other man –so restrained at any other time- was enough to make up for any lack of practice. John found himself smiling into the kiss, and Sherlock –after a moments faltering- pulled away, his eyes shadowed by uncertainty. He seemed to want to say something, to ask something, but the detective’s voice caught in his throat and all that came out was a small, questioning sound that only made John’s smile grow wider. Sherlock cleared his throat at that, and his hands dropped from where they had been resting on John, though they never fully stopped touching him.

“You’re laughing.” It was a question, though what it was a question of, even Sherlock didn’t seem to know. John shook his head.

“Then why are you smiling?”

“No, it’s— No, it IS funny, but not in— It’s just that…My uniform.”

“What about it?” Sherlock asked. Johns hands had come between them and taken Sherlock’s. The doctor stared down at them, inspecting them like Sherlock had inspected his a few weeks earlier when he had burned it on the kettle. They were long, and slender. The hands of a pianist, really, though calluses, burns and various other faint marks gave them away as working hands. Scientist hands. Fighter hands.

“I thought you had been upset about it. It had seemed that way, anyway.”

They sat in silence again, while John stared down at Sherlock’s hands, turning them over and running his fingers over the palm. Sherlock took a deep breath that hitched in his chest midway. He let it out slowly.

“I wasn’t upset, John.”

The way he had said John’s name made the doctor look up suddenly, searchingly.

“Oh?”

Sherlock shifted in his seat and took his hands from Johns. He placed them on each shoulder, running them along the sides of the doctor’s arms and fingering the fabric, his eyes taking in every stitch. John watched him, trying to read the looks that crossed the other man’s face as he did this. What was it? In the blinding brightness the good doctor hadn’t been able to see clearly, but in the dim light of the parking lot, John could see it plainly now. It hadn’t been anger, or disapproval, or even simple apathy. It had been _want_. It had been _hunger_ , so buried and denied that it was almost disguised and lost.

“Oh,” John said again, and smiled in recognition.

“Yes, John. ‘Oh’.”

This time it was Sherlock who crossed the gap between them.


End file.
